


would you tell me to go f*ck myself or...

by half_sour_saffitz



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25580098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/half_sour_saffitz/pseuds/half_sour_saffitz
Summary: Option 1: Tell me to go f*ck myself.Option 2: Lead me to the garden.
Relationships: betty/james (who is a girl like taylor is a girl you feel me?)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	would you tell me to go f*ck myself or...

The seat is empty. It is so empty. It is empty like a black hole is empty, sucking all the light away. It is empty like a canteen becomes empty when you’re lost in the desert. It is empty like you are starting to think your heart must be. 

_Scrip. Scrap. Scrip. Scrap. Scrip-scrip-scrip_.

“Jaz — can you stop that?” Mrs. Humphrey’s voice is patiently annoyed.

Oh shit. You didn’t even realize, but you were prodding your skateboard back and forth, it’s wheels making an unholy union with the ubiquitous school floor tiles. You blink hard, and try to disappear. Upon unblinking, Inez’ viciously amused eye contact tells you that you were unsuccessful. Again. 

“ _Drink bleach_ ,” you whisper to her. Except your mouth doesn’t move and your vocal chords don’t rub against each other and no one hears you. They all just keep doing their thing, spreading rumors while waiting for homeroom to end. Each time a tale passes between new lips, it gets bigger and more absurd; everyone wants to be the one with the best story. 

Betty doesn’t believe rumors — as a moral stance. That is the last thread of hope you are clinging to, though the empty chair in front of you argues that this rumor has for sure found its way to Betty’s ears. _Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck_. 

The bell rings and you’re the first one out the door, narrowly escaping the gravitational pull of Betty’s empty chair. 

Of course, Betty’s ghost follows you through the halls to first period: Gym class. It smells like every other gymnasium. Like there’s a special perfume. Like if there was a candle called Public School Gym, absolutely no one would buy it because it would take you right back to the the slap of a dodgeball against skin and the absolute shame of having to undress in front of your peers. 

For you, though, the smell pulls you back in time to Spring Fling, the beginning of the end. As you complete your warm-up jog, the gym transforms. It’s night, here’s the snack bar, there’s the DJ, everywhere is the pounding bass and cloying scent of hormones. 

And then the song — that damn song — starts playing. For a cold moment, you think you are finally losing it, as the opening synths mix with your out-of-shape gasping. But no, you aren’t that deranged, not yet. It’s actually playing. Betty’s song is actually playing, right here, right now, in first period P.E.. Coach T is rocking out over by the stereo in the aggressively bad way teachers do when they want you to roll your eyes at them. 

_Mission accomplished_. 

But your feelings of wanting to be anywhere else have very little to do with Coach T’s questionable dance moves. Nope, you can’t blame a singular soul but yourself for the bleacher-skulking you did during this song. It would have been so easy to sway to the beat somewhere in Betty’s eyesight and remind her that you still existed. It would have been _easier_ to shine in her light, then try to hide from it during her favorite song. _But- but- but-_ the devil on your shoulder demands to be heard, demands to show you the snapshot that made you seek out the bleachers. Betty and the CEO of Boys Will Be Boys, Inc., Marcus Grant. And his boy hands on her waist. And his boy eyes soaking in her five feet ten inches of excellence. 

In the revisionist histories you write before you fall asleep, you cut into that dance, and tell him to pack his eyeballs back into his skull because _this sight? this gorgeous goddess right here?_ was not and is not for public consumption. The angel on your opposite shoulder — that poor, beleaguered, soft-spoken, fucking coward — whispers “It was only a dance, it was only a dance!” 

You feel like vomiting as you finish your laps and pull up on the side of the court. For once, it has nothing to do with the running. 

* * *

It has everything to do with walking home and the angel being eighteen billion times weaker than the devil. 

* * *

“Taylor!” Coach T’s rough bark cuts through your memories, saving you from reliving the moment the Toyota’s passenger door swung open. “Boy’s team,” says Coach T, laughing with his yellow teeth. 

“That joke’s never going to get old, it is?” you ask, as you file over to the girl’s side of the volleyball court. Because you’re a girl, even if you have a boy’s name, even if you share it with legendary country folk singer James Taylor who was a boy — you’re a girl. By the beginning of junior year, most of the teachers have accepted this. But some of the more irritating ones hold on tight to their tired jokes. 

Like what Tyler Cromwell, Senior Vice President of Douche-Clownery, mutters as you take your spot on the court. “Bet she wants to be on the boy’s side.”

Your sneakers squeak on the floor as you come to an abrupt halt, and pivot back to face his stupid face, and yell, “That doesn’t make any sense, asshat, if I was _gay_ I’d want to be on the _girl’s_ side, _obviously_ ” except you don’t. Your sneakers are silent, just like your voice. Just like your eyes, as they quietly assess everyone who laughs, everyone who rolls their eyes, and all of those who ignore the psychopathic bully in their midst (hello, Coach T). And unfortunately, you also meet the big, brown eyes that are staring mournfully at you through the net. 

_Shit_. 

* * *

The brown eyes pull you back into that best terrible night, when the air smelled like little green leaflings and the sun refused to go down and you floated down the bike path between the lake and Atlantic Avenue, playing and replaying your new favorite memory. And those big brown eyes pulled up next to you in a hand-me-down Toyota and offered you a ride. 

“Don’t get in the car!” you scream uselessly at the movie screen. The protagonist doesn’t hear you, doesn’t see how obviously the next few plot points will play out. Doesn’t see how easily doom could be avoided by _not getting in the car_. 

But you did get in the car that warm June night. And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you had a boyfriend. And hands in dark places after everyone else had gone to bed. You never told a soul. You also never told him not to tell as many souls as he wanted. As if that made it better — as if the knife in Betty’s back would hurt any less, coming from Inez instead of you.

The movie played out like physics — actions and reactions. School started, Betty switched her homeroom, you broke up with the brown-eyed boy, and now the world has two people you’ve hurt, instead of one. 

* * *

And now Betty is having a party. Tonight, in fact. Inez told you because karma is a cruel bitch with a flair for irony. And now, and now, and now, you can’t stop thinking about showing up to a party you are definitely not invited to. 

You picture it as you skate home. You’ll show up. The door — that yellow door you know better than your own — will be closed, but you’ll be able to hear the music bumping inside the house. Your finger will poke the bell. Betty will answer, it’s her house after all. 

**Scenario A:** Betty invites you in. 

Unlikely. 

**Scenario B:** Betty tells you to go fuck yourself. 

Harsh, but warranted. 

**Scenario C:** Betty bites her bottom lip, wanting to open the door, wanting to slam it. She gestures the smallest gesture with her head, out of the party, into the side garden with the fairy lights. Years pass as you talk without speaking, the sun rises and sets and rises and sets and eventually expands, swallowing you, still standing in the garden. 

The sound of the collective gasp of faceless party guests drowns you. 

* * *

You’re here. On the block with the blue house with the yellow door. The yellow door which is open. No need to knock just go right in. No empty walkway to walk up and down, finalizing the way it’ll go down. You fiddle with the hem of the dress Betty insisted you buy, and push into the party. It’s vibing, complete with red solo cups that scream “my parents are gone for the weekend.” A few voices and nods greet you — it’s not like a pariah in real life, just in your mind. 

“Hey, where’s Betty?” 

If anyone was paying attention, they’d hear the tremble of overwhelming longing in your words — just in three words. But no one is paying attention. It’s Betty’s house after all. 

“In the garden, I think?” 

Your heart climbs into your throat. The garden. With the fairy lights. Where time stands still. Yes, she is in the garden. Tall and freckly, like always. Hand wrapped around a bottle, laughing, light and free. Her favorite cable-knit cardigan hanging on by one shoulder. You realize you can’t do it. You have no right to be here. How can you justify taking the light out of this girl’s eyes — _again_?

“Jaz?” 

_Oh. Fuck._

The world could end right now and you would die happy. Die happy to hear that voice say your name. Happy to hear that voice say your name, not in anger, not in pain but in — god is it possible she sounds _happy_? 

Yes. She’s smiling. _She’s smiling_. For a second. Then the smile gets a lot more complicated. Teeth work on her bottom lip. But you’re smiling — because Betty’s first reaction to seeing you at her party that you weren’t invited to after the three longest months of not talking was a _smile!_ And when Betty smiles, you smile. 

“Hi.” 

All the rehearsed scripts are forgotten, along with all the partiers and the music and the self-conscious feeling about your dress. It’s just Betty in her cardigan biting her lip in the fairy garden. 

You step closer. 

“I didn’t think you were gonna come.” 

“I didn’t know if I could.” 

Betty rolls her eyes and twists a lock of perfect brown hair around her middle finger in a way that says: _I never pushed you away, dingdong, you ran._

“So?” Betty asks, eyebrows raised. 

The walls fall down. 

You reach up on tiptoes in Converse hightops, one hand on the back of that soft brown hair, pulling the giant down to your lips. 

The giant kisses you back. 

And the world explodes. 

Vaguely, you are aware that somewhere, someone — a bunch of someones — are hollering. It’s partially stupid, and partially awesome, but mostly it’s far, far away. Kissing Betty is like being on a planet up in the stars that has seventeen sunrises a day. There is very little air, and you feel kind of dizzy, but holy fucking shit it’s beautiful. 

After an infinite moment, you return to Earth. Back to the party. Back to the garden. Back to the place where you did this for the first time. Unlike that time, you only feel the good, the pinnacle of exhilaration. You don’t feel the scared, tremply rabbit part that wants to sprint for the air conditioned cover of a hand-me-down Toyota. 

“Can we go somewhere?” Betty whispers. 

“It’s _your_ party.” 

She shrugs and you two are out of there. Tyler Cromwell detaches himself from the random assortment of extras in your movie with a shit-eating grin and a grade-school rhyme about kissing in trees and proves he can spell simple words. 

Betty says: “Go fuck yourself” exactly like you dreamed. 


End file.
